Page 36 of Badd Daddy
She halted, wiping a few dainty, lady-like droplets of sweat off her brow, and glanced back at me. “Oh my god, Lucas! Are you okay?” Her expression was concerned, her voice full of worry.
A downed tree lay parallel to the path, and I slumped down onto it, stretching out my bad leg and massaging it, leaning my walking stick against the log beside me. I worked on slowing my breathing, and taming the resentment that was coursing through me.
She sat beside me, taking small sips from a big pink Nalgene clipped to her backpack via a carabiner. “Lucas?”
I didn’t answer immediately, instead waiting until I could speak without gasping. “Fine…I’m fine.”
Liv glanced at me sideways. “Lucas.”
I groaned. “What?” I said with a harsh sigh.
“Tell me the truth.”
“The truth is, I’m not okay.”
“Should we go back?”
I shook my head. “No. I’m just being forced to face how badly I’ve let myself go.”
She didn’t answer for a long time, and I could tell she was wrestling with what to say, and how to say it without insulting me.
I laughed, the sound a little bitter. “Liv, just say whatever’s on your mind and quit worryin’ about how it’ll make me feel.”
“I guess I’m just wondering if…if you were in denial?” She was quiet another moment or two. “With Darren, he knew he wasn’t in the best shape. He knew he had a bad heart. He just…he thought if he stayed fairly active, it would counteract his atrocious diet. I told him otherwise, his doctor told him otherwise, but he just wouldn’t hear it. He wanted to enjoy life and, for him, that meant eating what he wanted to eat, regardless of how it affected his heart.”
“Meaning, you’re asking how it’s possible that Ididn’tknow how fat and out of shape I am.”
“I don’t mean—”
“Liv.” I grabbed a double handful of belly and shook it. “This ain’t somethin’ you can just pretend ain’t there.” I sighed, scrubbing my face. “I just…I guess I didn’t care. It didn’t matter.”
“But, Lucas…you’re…you’re essentially dying.”
I cackled. “Not essentially, babe. Reality—here and now, inescapable, undeniable.”
“The heart attack?”
I nodded. “That was part of it.”
“The car wreck?”
I nodded again, staring at the tree line, the blue sky beyond, and flexed my leg, testing the joint and the ache. “I woke up in the hospital, alive, and knew I’d only just barely escaped death…a second time. The first time, the heart attack, the fact that I survived it was…I don’t want to say blind luck, but something very much like it. I shouldn’t have survived it, but I did. Took a while to recover from the surgery. Forced me to retire early, because I just needed too much time off to recover, and I’d worked there nearly forty years anyway.”
“What did you do?”
I shrugged, waved a hand. “Worked on the line in a manufacturing plant. Nothing super inspiring. It was just a job to pay the bills, honestly. I didn’t hate it, but it wasn’t nothin’ I chose out of passion for the career. I just sorted of ended up there and never left.”
“How do you mean, you just ended up there?” she asked, tilting her head to one side inquisitively.
“No end to your questions, huh?” I laughed. “Eh, you know, the way life does.”
She smiled at me. “I’m curious—I don’t mean to pry.”
I sighed. “I guess I’m just not used to…well, to anyone caring.”
She frowned. “Lucas, that’s…that’s awful.”
“I mean, my boys love me, but they’re my sons, you know? Why should they care to ask about all this? They got their own lives to figure out, and they had all they could handle keeping my drunk ass out of trouble.” I hissed, realizing what I’d just said. “Fuck. I…I mean—”